Realistic texture extraction for 3D face models robust to self-occlusion

In the context of face modeling, probably the most well-known approach to represent 3D faces is the 3D Morphable Model (3DMM). When 3DMM is fitted to a 2D image, the shape as well as the texture and illumination parameters are simultaneously estimated. However, if real facial texture is needed, texture extraction from the 2D image is necessary. This paper addresses the possible problems in texture extraction of a single image caused by self-occlusion. Unlike common approaches that leverage the symmetric property of the face by mirroring the visible facial part, which is sensitive to inhomogeneous illumination, this work first generates a virtual texture map for the skin area iteratively by averaging the color of neighbored vertices. Although this step creates unrealistic, overly smoothed texture, illumination stays constant between the real and virtual texture. In the second pass, the mirrored texture is gradually blended with the real or generated texture according to the visibility. This scheme ensures a gentle handling of illumination and yet yields realistic texture. Because the blending area only relates to non-informative area, main facial features still have unique appearance in different face halves. Evaluation results reveal realistic rendering in novel poses robust to challenging illumination conditions and small registration errors.